


heart like a blade

by thingswithwings



Category: Elementary (TV), Empire (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fandom March Madness, Queer Friendship, Sherlock Holmes & Joan Watson Friendship, it's mostly about powerful complex ladies who want to bone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:51:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3521318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/pseuds/thingswithwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Joan had to summarize her observations of Cookie to Sherlock – and, who is she kidding, he's celebrity-obsessed and will probably wring it out of her one day – she'd say that she's a woman who strikes out first with her weaknesses and hides her strengths until they're needed.  It's nearly enough to knock Joan off balance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heart like a blade

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, crossover femslash written in March is inspired by Fandom March Madness, which functions for me essentially as a prompt generator. I was torn between the Joan Watson vs Cookie Lyon mashup (I wasn't actually, I voted Cookie) but the idea of the two of them interacting was too amazing so I had to write this as well.

Joan's aware of the Lyons, and of Empire. You'd have to be dead to live in New York and not be aware of them – the deal-making, the scandals, the jockeying for position. When she first moved into the brownstone, Joan had hidden her guilty-pleasure glitzy entertainment magazines from Sherlock, thinking that he'd think them frivolous, but then had awoken one morning to find him cross-legged and shirtless on the kitchen floor, leafing through a huge stack of them that she had been sure were under her bed the night before.

"I commend your choice of reading material, Watson," he had said. "There is often more truth to be found here than in any so-called respectable publication."

After that, she'd felt perfectly justified in reading _US Weekly_ , since it was, apparently, practically the same as fighting crime. So she saw the articles about Cookie Lyon being released from prison, about Hakeem and Tiana, and about Jamal's big coming-out song, which had been splashed all over the cover not too long ago. 

But, although she had filed the information carefully away in her mind, she hadn't ever expected it to come to anything.

"I'm hiring you for this job and this job alone, do you hear?" Cookie Lyon says, eyes locked with Joan's, her manicured finger pointing directly at Joan's chest. Joan struggles to keep her posture relaxed, her arms at her sides. "I don't wanna hear about no spying you're doing on your own time. I'm paying you plenty to look for what I want you to look for, and plenty more so you don't see the things that ain't your business."

Joan nods. "I understand. You'll have my complete discretion."

Cookie doesn't move, and though her position looks casual – lounging against her expensive leather office chair, fur coat draped behind her – Joan knows that she's being sized up, evaluated by a woman who's managed to survive and thrive for years with no resources but her sharp eyes and her quick mind. 

"You see that I do," Cookie says. Then she makes a shooing gesture, as if Joan is nothing more than an underling, peasant labor to be dismissed when no longer useful. Joan wants to bristle at that. Her fingers itch to pull her single-stick from its hiding place, or to wrap around Cookie's neck, push her back against the wall, show her the power that Joan could have over her if she chose.

Joan, of course, does none of those things, because she's a professional and this job pays well enough to let her do nothing but pro bono for the next year if she wants.

Instead, she nods her head and gets the hell out of there. The sooner she begins her surveillance of Anika Calhoun, the sooner she can collect her fee.

*

Cookie flips through the photos quickly, almost casually, dismissing the multiple shady goings-on and actually actionable (if small scale) crimes that Joan had documented. 

"Boring. Knew it. Boring. Boring. Knew it. Knew it. _Definitely_ knew it. Boring." She takes a little longer looking at one particularly lurid photo. "Didn't know it but, you know, I'm not surprised."

She sighs, looking back up at Joan. "And this is all you got?" 

Joan raises her eyebrows; for any of her other corporate clients, the information she's gathered on Calhoun would be a goldmine. But then, Cookie isn't exactly her average corporate client.

"That's what I've observed," Joan says carefully. She's also observed the way Cookie makes her animosity and jealousy for Calhoun into a weapon – knows that she's helpless to hide it, and displays it instead, challenging others to call her on it.

If Joan had to summarize her observations of Cookie to Sherlock – and, who is she kidding, he's celebrity-obsessed and will probably wring it out of her one day – she'd say that she's a woman who strikes out first with her weaknesses and hides her strengths until they're needed. It's nearly enough to knock Joan off balance.

Joan wouldn't play poker with her for money, but damn does she ever want to do it for fun.

She shakes herself free of her train of thought as Cookie finally speaks again. "Miss Watson," she says, in soft and glowing tones. Joan braces herself for whatever's coming next. "How flexible would you say your . . . moral code might be?"

Joan cocks her head. "Absolutely inflexible," she answers immediately. Cookie throws back her head and laughs.

"You know what, Miss Watson, I like you," she says. "I got another job for you, and since you're so inflexible and all, I think you're gonna do great."

"I'm not interested in being used to flush out Miss Calhoun so that your sons can gain access to her newest talent acquisition," Joan says flatly. 

Cookie blinks at her, just once, and then Joan can see her mind working, can see her adjust her strategy. God, she's quick. "You're not, huh? Not even if I double your fee?"

"Not even then. But if you need me for some legitimate detective work in the future, you know how to contact me."

Then Joan turns and gets out of there, working hard to keep her pace measured and resisting the impulse to just run scared. Upon leaving Cookie's line of sight, Joan feels immediate relief, like stepping out of the sun and into the shade. She allows herself a small smile as she exits the building. 

*

Interestingly, Cookie does call her back for more legitimate detective work. She calls again after that, and again, until Joan has worked for Empire – or, for Cookie, at least – more than five times. It's good for the bank account, and the work is easy: tracking down missing musicians who are usually drunk or high under a bed somewhere; putting together the secrets of rival companies from publicly-available information; keeping an eye on Cookie's competitors of both the business and personal variety. 

"At this rate, Miss Watson, I'd go ahead and just put you on retainer, if it weren't for that morally inflexible attitude of yours," Cookie says. The words are spoken like a challenge – most of what Cookie says is spoken like a challenge – but Joan sees the smile, and accepts the teasing. It's not the first time, and she doubts it'll be the last.

"I'm not particularly interested in being on retainer," Joan says honestly. "Too much downtime. Too little to challenge me."

"Oh, so you're saying that the jobs I'm giving you aren't _challenging_ enough," Cookie drawls, mock-offended.

Joan shrugs. "Nothing you've given me so far has tested my capabilities," she says. 

"Okay, okay, I hear you," Cookie says, putting her hands up in mock-surrender. It's one of Cookie's favorite gestures, and by now it's familiar to Joan. "Gotta stimulate the talent, can't have them getting bored."

"Oh, I'm the talent now? You're going to treat me like one of your musicians? Because I'd rather you not shower me in hookers and blow."

This makes Cookie laugh, a real, genuine laugh, something Joan has rarely seen her do. She's struck by Cookie's beauty, her grace, her emotional approach to life. She reminds Joan sometimes of Moriarty. Or maybe it's just that she's Sherlock's opposite: someone who is in complete control but leads entirely with her heart. Someone who uses her heart as a blade.

"Oh, you don't gotta worry about that, Miss Watson, I wouldn't do anything of the kind." The humor evaporates from Cookie's face and her features settle into something darker as she looks at Joan appraisingly. "You manage different talent differently, according to their . . . needs."

Joan doesn't respond right away, and Cookie, holding eye contact, bites her lip deliberately. In the back of her mind, Joan is running through possible reasons for this, for the flirting, what's obviously going to be a come-on of some kind: Cookie wants to cement her allegiance, Cookie wants her to put her talents towards morally dubious pursuits, Cookie wants to gain power over her. In the front of her mind, all that she can process is the realization of Cookie's sudden closeness, the way she reaches out with one exquisitely manicured hand and touches Joan's face, the backs of her knuckles brushing along Joan's jawline. She feels the warmth and smoothness of Cookie's skin, the cool glancing touch of Cookie's rings against her throat, the tiniest pinch when one fingernail scrapes against Joan's collarbone before Cookie pulls back.

"What are your needs, Miss Watson?" Delivered in a throaty whisper. 

"I don't sleep with clients," Joan says, trying for her coolest demeanor. As she says it, she realizes that she sounds like Sherlock, a little, cutting to the heart of the matter. That's probably a good thing; nothing dampens a person's ardor like Sherlock talking about sex.

Cookie's hand is no longer on her body, but Cookie hasn't backed off, is still standing well inside Joan's personal space. "Mmm-hmmm," she says, as if this were a minor obstacle and not a hard no. "It's that moral inflexibility again." Her tone is teasing and playful.

"Exactly," Joan agrees. She takes a step back – just one, just enough to reestablish boundaries – but keeps her gaze locked with Cookie's, making it clear that she's not threatened. 

"Well, I'm not gonna fire you, Miss Watson, you're too much of an asset to this company."

"Then that's settled," Joan says. 

It doesn't feel settled. 

She wonders if she should give up this job entirely, or pass it over to another detective. Sherlock might lower himself enough to do the work for a while, given the money involved. She should get herself out of this situation while she's still not – while her emotional attachment is still – while she's able to.

She knows that she's not going to do anything of the kind, though.

She also knows that Cookie is a big part of the reason why. 

"Well," Cookie says after a while, sitting back on her desk, "maybe this next case I got for you will be stimulating enough."

Joan licks her lips unconsciously, then internally berates herself for doing so. Cookie holds up a folder.

Looking through the contents, Joan finds herself unexpectedly interested. She reads quickly, then reads again more slowly, putting together the unique circumstances. Eventually, she raises an eyebrow at Cookie.

"You want me to find a song?"

Cookie shrugs. "You could put it that way."

"How do you lose a song?" But it's all there in the file, a complicated 20-year history of intertwining forces: theft, copyright law, familial obligation, shifting corporate ownership of various artists' work . . . she's going to have to get an intellectual property lawyer in on this, she realizes. Maybe Sherlock too. Sherlock will like it, undoubtedly, because the pre-digital technology involved means that it's not only a puzzle, but a treasure hunt: a search for a lost cassette tape now worth millions of dollars, and the evidence that proves it belongs to Empire. 

"You like that, huh," Cookie says, and Joan tears her eyes away from the pages and looks up. Cookie's expression is self-satisfied, and Joan can't help but chuckle. 

"I'm going to need to hire some consultants," Joan says. "This'll be twice my usual fee."

"Done."

"And it's going to take some time."

"Oh, sure, I would think so. You know how long Empire and Creedmoor have both been looking for this?"

"Since the day you were sent to prison," Joan replies immediately, her head back in the names and dates in the file. Then, a moment later, she wonders if that was the wrong thing to say. Cookie doesn't seem offended, though. Joan clears her throat. "I'll get started on this right away."

Cookie circles her desk, sitting back down in the huge leather chair. "I thought you might, Miss Watson," she grins. Her gaze on Joan is still speculative, hot, flirtatious. Part of Joan rebels at the lack of professionalism, but part of her is eager for that gaze, too, for the sensation of Cookie's sharp attention turned on her. Like being in the sun, she thinks again, but this time she has no desire to leave.

"I guess now I know how to stimulate you," Cookie adds, laughing.

Joan rolls her eyes and takes the folder with her when she goes.

*

Sherlock is interested in the lost song, and spends some time sorting through the evidence with her, both of them sitting crosslegged on the living room floor and eating out of takeout containers as they go through legal documents, newspaper clippings, old internal memos. 

For mood, Joan had dug out an old Joanna Choy CD and put it on, and though she hasn't listened in years, each song is still intensely familiar. She wonders what the missing song might be like.

"I grew up to this music," she says, swaying along with one of the slow ones.

"I remember it being somewhat popular in England in the late eighties," Sherlock agrees. "Lyrics are rather insipid, but there are some arrangements that inspire the mind."

"I'm so glad to hear it," Joan says, not even bothering to roll her eyes. With Sherlock, it's not worth the effort.

She reads through a document provided by one of the Empire copyright lawyers. Choy was originally represented by Creedmoor, and that's making it difficult to know exactly what kind of evidence would prove this song belonged to Empire.

"You of course realize that Ms Lyon is not hiring you for the reasons she claims," Sherlock says, after a long silence. Joan sighs.

"She hasn't seemed particularly interested in the results I gather for her, no," she admits. She chews thoughtfully. "And she prefers Cookie, actually. Though she always calls me Miss Watson."

Sherlock blinks. "From all accounts, including yours, Watson, she is a fascinating person."

"I'm not introducing you."

"No? What about when you begin sleeping with her? Will I rate an introduction then?"

Joan puts down her chopsticks and glares at him. "There are times when I really don't like you."

"You come home from your meetings with her looking flushed, aroused, stimulated. Today especially."

"Stimulated," Joan repeats, muttering to herself. "You know I wouldn't – " she flails for the right terminology – "start a relationship with someone I'm working for," she says. Sherlock nods his agreement.

"No, certainly not. You would lack the moral flexibility for such an action."

Joan laughs. "Maybe I should introduce you, after all. She might be more your type than mine."

"Indeed. Especially since I had little previous evidence that you might be bisexual."

It's a question, not a statement, and Joan takes her time with it. "I don't often have much . . . interest in women. Sometimes, though. I would've thought that you knew, I had girlfriends when I was younger."

"While my powers of deduction are profound, Watson, I don't think it will surprise you to learn that I am not omnipotent. Also, given female homosociality in American culture, it is often more difficult to tell when a woman has same-sex desire than when a man does. Even the word girlfriend serves as a good example, since you yourself have used the term in the past to indicate simply a friend who is a girl."

"True," Joan agrees, and thinks that this is just about as weird a coming-out moment as she could imagine.

"Perhaps this would be a good time to reassure you of my support and confess my own bisexuality, as a way of indicating solidarity."

She was wrong; around Sherlock, things can always get weirder. "Perhaps," she says softly, and smiles. "I appreciate it." She wants to hug him, but knows that he doesn't like being hugged; instead she clasps his hand with her own, a gesture he's always taken well to in the past. He holds her hand tightly for a moment, nodding quickly.

"I say this in part so that when I urge you to be cautious around Cookie Lyon, you will take it as a dispassionate observation, not as some instinctual homophobia on my part."

"Understood," Joan says firmly, and lets their hands part. "I agree, though. Cookie's dangerous. And she didn't hire me to take pictures of Anika Calhoun, or drag eighteen year old rappers out of strip clubs."

"Her assignments for you have been getting increasingly difficult over time," Sherlock points out. "This latest is actually challenging, but it's the first, is it not?"

"She's evaluating me," Joan muses. "The question is, what for?"

"Well," Sherlock says, looking over the documents spread out before them, "the only way to find out is to solve this case and move on to the next level of the game."

*

Joan solves the case. And, because she's not quite as morally inflexible as everyone would make her out to be, she listens to the song on an ancient walkman she digs out of Sherlock's closet before she takes it in to Cookie.

And when her mother calls her, a week later, to tell her about the newly-discovered lost Joanna Choy song playing on the radio, Joan gets to tell her the story of how she discovered it.

It's the first time, Joan reflects, that she's seen any public result at all from one of her cases for Empire. Her suspicions solidify: this was, most likely, the last test. Whatever Cookie wants from her, it's going to be covert, and another case like this would get her noticed at Empire.

The next time Cookie requests a meeting, Joan goes in ready for something big.

"So," she says, after Cookie's offered her coffee and pastries, after she's sitting comfortably, legs crossed, in Cookie's office. "Today's the day you tell me why you really hired me in the first place."

Cookie looks taken aback. Joan shrugs. "Porsha's not at her desk. The whole floor looks empty, in fact. This is something you don't want anyone to know about, especially your sons." Cookie's eyes narrow in confirmation, so Joan takes a risk and goes a step further: "Especially Hakeem. This is something that you think would destroy your relationship with him."

"What would make you say that, Miss Watson?" Cookie's expression is all cold fury, the emotion she's wielding at the moment to cover her real purpose.

"You've assigned me enough cases to create a pattern. And while my investigations have occasionally brought me into contact with your other two sons, they've never brought me anywhere near your ex-husband or Hakeem. You don't want them to know about me. You're either sheltering both of them, or sheltering Hakeem from something you want me to do that will be bad for Lucious. And I ask myself, which is more likely: that Cookie would shelter her ex-husband and youngest son, but not her other two – not her favorite – or that she intends to take action against Lucious that Jamal and Andre would understand, but that Hakeem would not?"

Cookie nods slowly. "I knew I chose right, when I chose you," she says. "You are way too smart for your own damn good, Miss Watson."

"I've been told." She pauses, considering. It's not important, not really, but it's been bugging her. "Why do you call me Miss Watson?"

Cookie raises an eyebrow. "It's what you wanted from me. _Professionalism_." She says the word as if it were inherently a joke. "Now, I'm not exactly known for giving people what they want – " she pauses, rubbing her finger back and forth on the desk. It recalls, to Joan's mind, the time she felt the sensation of that fingertip against her skin. Perhaps it's meant to. "But when it's a possible advantage, I'll do it. Do you not want me to do it anymore?"

"You can call me Joan," Joan says, breathing out. Her body wants to breathe faster, and her skin is tingling, and god, no wonder Sherlock had been able to tell. 

Cookie's self-satisfied smirk says that she can tell, too.

"What makes you think that I didn't hire you for all those other jobs, Joan?"

"You've been . . . testing me. My discretion with sensitive information. My loyalty to your interests. My morality." She waits, knowing that the reveal is coming. She just has to wait for it.

Cookie stands, walks around the desk, and sits on the edge delicately. She's all in red today, the dress clinging to her body, fingernails red-tipped as if dipped in blood, and something that looks very much like a ruby sparkling in the hollow of her throat. Her fur coat, currently draped over her shoulders, is leopard. Joan wasn't wrong to say that this woman is dangerous, but it's possible that she didn't really know how much danger she was in.

"I wanted to know," Cookie intones, "how much you care about celebrity. How likely you'd be to cover up something . . . unsavory, shall we say, for somebody famous. How much you value the truth. And I wanted to see if you had the skills to pull this off."

This time it's Joan who takes a step forward, into Cookie's personal space. She wants more, she wants answers, she wants Cookie's red mouth to open and spill all the secrets that Joan hasn't found out for herself.

"Cookie," she says. "Tell me what you want me to do."

Then Cookie's smile turns wicked, and she wields her heart like a blade, and she says, "I want you to put my husband in jail for murder."

*

Lucious Lyon cleaned up after himself, that much is clear from the start. But Joan finds a potential witness through a contact of Detective Bell's in the 112th. 

"We couldn't get much out of him," Detective Walker tells her, sighing. "Maybe you can do better."

Joan does, getting some of her old contacts – mental health workers, shelter organizers, addiction counsellors – to help the old man back on his feet. When he's been on regular medication for a while, living among other people, given safety and shelter and solid food, he becomes lucid enough to point her in the right direction. 

She finds the murder weapon.

She finds blood that the police missed.

She finds the evidence for Bunkie's debt, and weighs it in her mind against Lucious's tendency to hoard power and money and name.

She doesn't sleep much. When she does, she wakes up suddenly, the details of the case playing across her mind as if she'd never been to sleep. Sherlock leaves her trays of breakfast food, piles of freshly laundered clothes, and post-it notes admonishing her to remember the interesting ballistics results or the slight mismatch in alibi stories.

Cookie calls her in for interim reports, and every meeting is like the one where she gave Joan this assignment: Porsha gone, the floor cleared out, her and Cookie alone in her office. There's a hole in the wall where Cookie probably removed some kind of listening device.

"Malcolm DeVeaux does your security, doesn't he?" Joan asks innocently, her eyes on the tear in the drywall. "I've consulted with him before."

"He won't notice the missing hardware," Cookie assures her, something dark and deadly in her eyes.

Joan asks for more background on the family, looking for any clue as to Lucious's likely behavior that will lead to solid evidence. Cookie answers easily, revealing secrets enough to sink her, her entire family, and her Empire, forever. Joan signed an NDA on her first day, but it doesn't escape her notice that Cookie values her trust more than a piece of paper.

Joan doesn't ask the questions she really wants answers to: _why are you doing this when you obviously still love him_ and _what will you do when he's locked away_ and _is this all you want from me_. Cookie touches her, occasionally, stroking Joan's exposed upper arm so briefly that it's almost a casual touch, clasping Joan's hand just a little too long when they meet.

Joan touches back. She doesn't know if she's being manipulated. Maybe they're manipulating one another.

"It's going to have to be Vernon," Joan tells Cookie, one day. "I have enough evidence to get my friends in the police to bring him in. And if you can get him to fold, to side with you, then the case will be airtight. I know that he knows."

"Well of course Vernon knows, Joan," Cookie snaps. "He's tied hisself to Lucious like it's holy matrimony, and god knows he's not gonna let go. Not when it's his ass on the line, too."

"We'll get him a deal," Joan says. "He's got family, he's got people he needs to take care of. It'll work."

Cookie thinks it over. "You know if this doesn't work, Lucious'll know what I been doing."

"Yes."

"You think it's gonna work."

"Yes."

"All right, then, Miss Watson," Cookie sighs, and Joan takes a deep breath. "Go get that man his fair share of prison time. I did vow to share everything with him, after all."

*

Joan, at Cookie's request, makes sure that Lucious won't find out who was behind the investigation, not for a while at least.

"You still care what he thinks about you," Joan says. They're in Cookie's apartment, where they went after the arrest, drinking expensive champagne out of even more expensive crystal. Across the city, Lucious Lyon is spending his first night in jail in a very long time. 

"Of course I care," Cookie says, "I married him! I loved him!"

"You still love him," Joan adds.

"I still love him," Cookie agrees. 

"I still don't know what your motivation was for this," Joan admits. "You can't gain control of the company this way, much as you'd like to play the black widow. I can think of a few other possibilities, based on what you've told me, but not why you'd make this decision all of a sudden."

"Not all of a sudden," Cookie protests, sighing. "Nothing in a marriage happens all of a sudden, girl. I know you a dyke, you never been married, but let me tell you, after twenty years, there's a lot of weight and momentum can build up in a marriage. Each little thing adds to it, over the years, until that hostility you feel inside is huge, and strong, and moving fast. So fast." She pauses.

Joan clears her throat. "So it wasn't something big he did. It was something small."

"Something he said to Jamal. Did to Jamal." Cookie gazes down into her glass, where her champagne is still bubbling. "Just the tip of the spear, you know, with all those twenty years of weight and speed coming up behind it."

Joan nods. They're quiet for a while, together. Joan thinks about why Cookie would think she's a lesbian, and decides it's because Cookie's only observational data came from times when Cookie herself was there. 

"I'm bisexual, actually. I date men. Too." It's something she hasn't said, hasn't hardly thought about, in almost twenty years, but she finds it's easier to say after her conversation with Sherlock.

"Yeah? So you can choose, huh?" 

Joan nods.

Cookie comes closer, close enough for the heat of her body to warm Joan's skin. She's gorgeous, makeup flawless, even though Joan can tell that she was crying earlier in the day.

"Tell me, then, Joan. Tell me what makes you choose a woman."

It's been so long that Joan hardly feels qualified to answer the question, and she can tell that Cookie is asking, at least in part, for herself. It's reassuring in a way to know that Cookie isn't as sure of herself as she pretends half the time. Joan puts her hand on Cookie's knee, drags it up her thigh. 

"When I want her," she says, and meets Cookie's eyes.

Cookie leans forward, her mouth hovering just above Joan's, their lips just barely touching as Cookie reaches down, takes Joan's hand, and pulls it further up her thigh and under her dress.

"Hey, Joan." Her breath warm against Joan's lips. Her skin hot and soft under Joan's fingertips.

"Yeah." Their mouths close, so close, that Joan can hardly stand it.

"You're fired."

Joan laughs her way into that kiss, into the sensation of Cookie's lips and tongue and teeth pressing against her, hot and soft and sharp all at once, the kiss of a woman who doesn't do anything halfway. 

Joan's had more first times than fifth times in her life, and they're usually awkward; and while those first minutes with Cookie don't really go smoothly – Joan's shoe refusing to unbuckle, Cookie's dress more difficult to get poured out of than into – it's covered by the momentum, the heat rising between them. Cookie bites Joan's lip and scratches Joan's back and it's just right, just how she's wanted it since day one, all of Cookie's sharp surfaces scraping against her body. 

"You gonna go down on me, Joanie?" Cookie asks between kisses, her breath coming hard but her voice soft, like she knows it's all Joan's been thinking about. Joan looks up at her, and Cookie fists her hand in Joan's hair, tight. 

Joan considers rebelling against Cookie's grip, shaking her off and holding her down instead. There's a white-hot fire burning inside her, making her want to push, to struggle, to wrestle for dominance.

"You wanna eat me out?" Cookie asks.

"Yes," Joan says, "I do." And she doesn't fight, just goes where Cookie wants her, trailing kisses down her sternum.

"Oh, good girl," Cookie breathes. "Yeah. I love that, keep doing that."

Joan doesn't usually talk much in bed, but she's not too surprised that Cookie does. She finds herself talking back. "You like this?" she asks, lips just above one dark peaked nipple. 

"Oh yeah, suck my titties," Cookie says, as Joan lowers her head and does. Cookie almost arches off the bed, and the cry she makes is guttural and uncontrolled. Joan's fingers clench against the skin of Cookie's stomach.

"Can I put my fingers in you?" 

"Yeah," Cookie gasps, "yeah, I want you to."

Joan does, pushing into Cookie's body where she's already wet, already soft. Joan strokes rhythmically, and Cookie hums her approval. Her head is thrown back against the pillow, but then, a moment later, her shoulders come up again and she props herself up on her elbows. Joan looks up, meets her eyes, and then slides her body further down to get her mouth in place.

"Look so good like that, Joanie," Cookie says. Her hand comes down to stroke through Joan's hair, fisting it every now and then just hard enough to make Joan's eyes close in pleasure. "Mmm, I love the look of a woman between my thighs."

Joan puts her mouth to Cookie's labia, pushing in slowly with her tongue to find her clit, and is gratified by the long warm moan she wrings from Cookie's throat. 

She sets up a steady rhythm, stroking and sucking, listening to Cookie's moans get louder and louder as she goes.

"Good, good, oh, that's so good, yes, _oh_ – "

Cookie gushes when she comes, liquid spilling hot over Joan's hand. Joan pulls back slowly.

"You were so good at that," Cookie says, when Joan looks up again. 

"I'm glad you thought so," Joan says, grinning to cut the formality of her words. "It was my pleasure."

"Yeah? And here I thought you were fighting it."

Joan crawls back up to her. "What?"

Cookie leans in to kiss her neck and murmurs into her ear. "You strike me as the kind of woman likes to be in control in the bedroom."

Joan shivers. "Yeah," she admits.

Cookie is still kissing her neck. "Me too," she says. "We're just the same." Now Cookie's hands are drifting all over Joan's body, caressing her hip, her thigh, running lightly up her ribs to thumb over a nipple. Joan arches into it, pressing herself against Cookie's touch.

"I liked that you went down for me," Cookie continues. "Gave it up for me."

"Sexual position doesn't – mmmm – necessarily imply dominance," Joan says, as Cookie pinches and twists her nipple. 

Cookie laughs. "Somebody oughtta tell the men that."

Joan laughs too, relaxing further back into the bed, as Cookie plays with her nipples. More than once, her long fingernails bite against Joan's skin and she winces.

"I got a toy," Cookie whispers, "since I'm not really equipped to return the favor." She wiggles her fingers to demonstrate and her nails click against one another. 

She pulls it out, a long black dildo, nothing fancy but enough to give Joan something to work herself against. 

Joan nods. "Put a condom on it."

Cookie does, and then waits. "What else you want me to do?" she asks, huskily. Joan slides one hand around the back of her neck. 

"Put your mouth on me. Put that toy inside me and fuck me with it."

Cookie's eyes glitter at Joan's commanding tone. "Yes, ma'am," she says, and bends down to do it. Her hair tickles against Joan's skin, and her mouth moves slowly over Joan's belly, and vulva, and thighs. She's taking her time.

"Come _on_ , already," Joan huffs, irritated, and feels Cookie's answering smile against her thigh. "Fuck me, do it, I know you want to."

Cookie's breathing speeds up again as she pulls back a little way to give herself room. Joan gasps as the dildo slides inside, slow and easy, and spreads her legs a little further to accommodate it. Soon enough Cookie's mouth is back on her, moving fast and hard now, not teasing at all. Cookie sucks her, and licks her, and doesn't give her any time to get used to the sensation. Even like this, her mouth buried against Joan's body, taking Joan's orders, she's a force to be reckoned with. 

"That's it, oh god," Joan says. "That's good." She strokes Cookie's shoulders and neck, pets her hair, rests a hand against the back of her skull. Slowly, she uses her leverage to pull Cookie in closer, getting her tongue into a new position that makes slow waves of pleasure start to roll through her.

It's all a haze from there, the sweet counterpoint between Cookie's hard thrusts and soft mouth pushed up against Joan's rolling hips, all of it more tender and slow than Joan ever thought it might be, back when she'd allowed herself time to imagine this. She comes almost unexpectedly, against a stroke much like the last one, easing smoothly into her orgasm and letting herself fracture into pieces.

"Stop," she says, when she can find her voice again. "Stop, it's too much."

Cookie stops, and eases the dildo out of her. "How you doing there, Joanie?"

Joan laughs a little. "No one calls me Joanie."

Cookie's fingertips trail over Joan's stomach. "I do."

Joan drifts for a minute or two, enjoying the afterglow, the warm press of Cookie's skin against her side, the sweat drying on her skin. 

"I want to do that to you again," Cookie says, into the quiet. Her voice is low and dangerous, the voice that Joan associates with Cookie's jealousy, her ambition, her protectiveness. With her power. "I wanna do that do you again and again until you scream."

"Yes," Joan says, meeting her eyes. "Yes."

"And then I want you on your knees for me, for hours, getting me off."

Joan runs a hand down Cookie's body proprietarily, twisting a nipple, scratching at her belly with short nails. Cookie shivers. 

"That can be arranged."

"And I want you to work for Empire on retainer," Cookie adds, softly, sexily.

Joan laughs, surprised into it, and hits Cookie with a pillow.

"I don't sleep with clients," she yells, "oh my god!" Cookie grins at her.

"Worth a shot," she says. She lies back against the pillows and closes her eyes, a satisfied smile on her face, naked and unselfconscious, gorgeous in the soft lamplight. Joan looks her fill.

"Well, you're welcome to try to convince me," Joan says. Cookie cracks one eye open and uses it to eyeball her. "But I will never surrender to your demands."

"I've taken down bigger men than you, Miss Watson," Cookie says, closing her eyes again.

"I know," Joan says. "You couldn't have done it without me."


End file.
